Rise in east Europeans leaving UK since Brexit vote: data

Migrants from eight Eastern European countries are increasingly leaving Britain after the Brexit vote but the number arriving from Bulgaria and Romania has jumped, official data released on Thursday showed.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also showed that in the year ending in September 2016, net migration -- the number of people who moved to Britain minus the number who left -- was 273,000.

This was the lowest reading since the year ending in June 2014 and the first to include data from the three months following Britain's EU referendum.

The ONS said the increase in people from eight countries in Eastern Europe -- Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia -- leaving the UK was "statistically significant".

The number of people from these countries leaving Britain rose by 12,000 to an estimated 39,000.